God Of Romance
by PrincesTomboy
Summary: In a world where Keima is replaced by Nishi, a boy with an almost opposite personality, the stories get a bit different. Basically, this is a retelling for all the people who hated how rude Keima was to the captured girls. And Elsie, for that matter.
1. Everything Can Break (Glass hearts)

**[[Ammika the Author: Hello everybody, and welcome to the first chapter of "God Of Romance"! I'm only about three minutes into Haqua's first episode right now, so these will come out about as fast as I see the anime plots. I'm using the dub, though I prefer the Japanese with subtitles myself, to follow along the plots. I'm going to do my best to make this interesting rather than copy-pasted of the canon stories, and please forgive any obnoxiously Wapanese flavor I add thanks to my second language studies and it being based on Japanese tropes anyway. Hey, the canon did it first!**

**One little disclaimer; this was written because the girls tend to be treated rather badly by Keima since he doesn't really care about, say, breaking cute little Shiori's heart. Although I have no vested interest in any of the girls either- only Shiori strikes any of my fangirl chords and they tend to seem rather flat as characters, I am determined to give them better endings than little logically-analyze-everything over in canon. Logic is good, screwing with people you're trying to make fall in love with you is just not a good application of logic. Even if it saves you from your-head-asplode-y death.**

**I'd like to thank "The Unexpected Love Life of Duskshine" for vaguely inspiring me to use this writing style! Today's game reference is Harvest Moon; SunshineIslands.**

**EDIT: I have no idea how to get it to stop eating my paragraph breaks and every single use of the enter key ever, so... uhh... help? Until then, enjoy this cluttered mess of a once-readable chapter. *sob* **

**EDIT2: On a lighter note, I added a bit more to highlight Nishi's growing feelings! They were there originally, I just forgot to put them in the lines instead of only between them. Except for the fact that he gave her new running shoes even though it didn't help with her capture, but maybe that was too subtle. Hope this clears things up!]]**

Loose souls need to be captured, and filling the hearts of young girls is a necessary part of that. Nothing less than a god can do, a god of goddesses' love. But what if instead of the one we got, one who mercilessly bewitches his target with only emotional commitment to his own hide (in the beginning, anyway), we had someone of a different color? Not one skilled in conquering, but romance?

Enter Nishi "Glass" Miyama. Or, Miyama三山/ みやまGarasuガラス Nishi西if you want to order it properly for the locals. Or, Sanyama or Sanzan if you want to ignore him and pronounce his name like it's spelled. These aforementioned locals consider the name fitting; Nishi refers to West, like the Americas he fanboys over and that his parents are currently vacationing in. Miyami is of course a family name, and all cracks about which three mountains they're referring to are ignored. The nickname is, of course, the only thing separating him from his beloved world of gal games. (And 'miyama garasu' means a rook in chess, but no one's noticed that yet.)

"Enter" at the moment was referring to detention, as his teacher threatened 'if he doesn't get off of his 2GS (To emphasis the 2 Gaming Screens, though the timing was rather stupid as they added the 2 right as they upgraded from 2D to 3D graphics) and actually pay attention.'

"Teachers should really know what 'multitasking' is." The blackhaired hero of our story muttered in a way that wasn't trying to keep his similarly-colored teacher from hearing it.

A vein threatened to pop in her forehead. "Now, if you have a question for me actually relating to your class, I'd be happy to answer." He looked up at her and grinned.

Instead of a question, he got a textbook to the face. If he wore glasses, he would need new ones right about now.

"Yuri ga baka ya meinu ze!*" He swore while soothing his possibly-broken nose by poking it at intervals. In reality, he had just spouted Engrish in an attempt to not get an even worse punishment for swearing at an authority figure; something like "Yuri ishya bichi!", but translation conventions are a heck of a thing.

This was a common occurrence for Ms. Yuri Nikaido, (or Mrs., Nishi never paid enough attention to notice which) but it still urked the gamer. As with everything, the way to cope was to continue playing his little games. He whipped out the tiny pink stylus to complete the minigame that popped up. Pink was his favorite color, and he was damn proud of that.

In trying to collect all the wool from the frantic sheep in an attempt to fill up the musical staff and eventually earn the super-wool, he didn't notice the classmate running up to him. Or that classmate running IN to him, the 2GS landing as hard as his head as they hit the tiles.

The first thing he did was make sure his little blue baby was alright, which it wasn't. Nothing the warranty couldn't handle, but he was pissed nonetheless.

"Guess I don't know my own strength!" The yet another raven-haired girl giggled, prying herself out of the column she'd impacted. She fixed her skirt, which up until this point was advertising her current underwear choice, and approached Nishi at a reasonable speed this time. Nishi hadn't noticed any of this, getting to a save point before Chelsea was lost to him forever. Or, that save file's Chelsea at least.

"So, I need a favor!" Ayumi's attempts at seduction were stifled by the fact she still sounded like she was having a sugar rush. "You kind of need to clean the roof by yourself, okay? Okay. I have stuff to do, we both know you don't, so have fun!"

She went on about shopping and track training and getting more rabbit food while Nishi's internal monologue was about the same as his one about his teacher. He could never respect or even like anyone so apathetic towards the wonders of virtual entertainment, and she wasn't moé enough for him to feel anything else towards her.

By the time he'd mentally rehearsed a brilliant comeback, she'd ran off again. This was evident by the crater in a nearby wall that matched the column's. All that was left were skid marks and a broom labeled as his in pink marker. Not because Nishi had that as a favorite color, but because Ayumi was Ayumi.

Nishi's definition of 'clean' was simply that you could walk through the area. Even if you walked over piles of clothing, it still was clean to him. This, combined with Ayumi still being Ayumi, meant that the big ol' nothing Nishi swept looked exactly like she had helped her usual amount. It didn't actually matter (the roof didn't get dusty thanks to high winds, and any leaves he tossed over the side would be replaced in a few hours) but it's the lack of thought that counts, right?

He was currently writing about a far better, if far less real, female specimen. Updating his blog, "God of Romance", about tricks and tips to get the most difficult date in his newest-conquered game; Lily, since an affiliate "Wig Knight's Tricks" (Anime cosplay and tips on anime-style games when it wasn't con season, they're pretty cool) hadn't managed to do that yet. Blah blah blah, make the volcano rise from the oceans, blah blah blah, remember to bring lots of boiled eggs. These games sure sound weird without context! Hey look, a new message.

"Dear God Of Romance,

I hope I'm not disturbing you. I've heard that you can make any girl you meet fall in love with you. It seems unlikely, but if it is true then please accept my request! I have a girl for you to try your hand at.

Dokurou•Sukaaru**"

And some red image signature Nishi couldn't read, he thought must be Korean. Or something.

"Heh, this sounds like a challenge. Alright, I accept!" He melodramatically hit "reply" with that little pink stylus to ask just what dating sim he was going to have to beat for the little punk.

Storm clouds swelled out of Hammerspace, the unsurprisingly sky blue sky drowning in the inky sense of doom as they condensed over his head. Pink lightning crashed, far too close for comfort to poor Nishi. The also pink explosion exploded pinkly, sending him and his handheld console sliding down the still-leaf-covered sidewalk. He screamed like a little girl, fumbled to collect his electronics before they fell a few stories, and conveniently crashed into a column of his own.

Wind swirled dramatically, a yet-again-black-haired girl spiraling down à la the Sailor Scouts. She was wearing things that could be considered traditionally Japanese, namely a purple kimono, with the fabric stripped down enough that you'd either want to stare or ask her to put on pants depending on your disposition. She also had on a yet-again-pink floating cloud of fabric around her, which along with the oversized skull hairpin looked even more out of place than her floating down from the sky would entail.

Nishi's hair was defying gravity more than usual, and his bright blue (from the Black Rock Shooter contacts) eyes were pinpricks as she landed in front of him with a soft click.

"Hello! Thank you for answering my plea, O Holy One!" She bowed and skipped a bit closer. She grabbed his wrist to help him up, as standing while being battered by an explosion was not as easy as movies implied. "Let's go and hunt down loose souls!"

Maybe she wasn't trying to help him up. Or maybe she did too good a job. Either way, skull-head and game-head swooshed into the air, with the latter screaming yet again and not gaining any masculinity points.

At the classroom the girl had landed them in, Nishi was trying to get his heart rate to below 300 BPM. Mostly because the only thing supposed to go that fast were pop songs. The girl, in all her pony-tailed socks-and-ribbons glory, was trying to find whatever it was she mentioned earlier. Shoe bottoms that didn't fit right, or something. Holding her broom in one hand, upside-down from how you get any use out of it, she peered out the window on her tip-toes despite being more than tall enough to see out even if she was crouching.

"I sensed a soul somewhere, but I can't seem to narrow the reading… Hm…"

Nishi got a hold of his sanity as it was trying desperately to find a safer host, saved his game, and stood. "Alright, listen. I have no need for any manic pixies, girlfriend or otherwise. So quit trying to get me to do whatever sidequest you're so up on and answer some of my questions. Name?"

She moved from the window to in front of him in a fluid slide. He was standing at the chalkboard, ready to jot down her stats as she explained them, for future study.

"I'm Elcea de Lute Ima!"

"Do you mean you're 'Elcea de Musical Instrument' at the moment, or is your last name meaning 'now' for about the next 90-by-55 mile area a coincidence?" He rattled off, mentioning a unit of measurement his school never used and assuming that her weird name wasn't structured like Japanese ones for good measure. As he wrote down her name on the board, he made a guess that she was an English crazy magical being rather than Japanese by nature.

"Ima is part of my name, Holy One! You can call me Elsie if you want to. I'm from Hell, under strict orders with the Runaway Souls Squad!" An English crazy demonic magical being, then.

There was a lengthy silence as they stared at each other, Elsie smiling sweetly and Nishi scowling sourly.

"Well, have fun with that." He put the chalk down and headed towards the door, pulling out his 2GS that he'd never put away anywhere to be pulled out of.

She grabbed his arm with a whimper noise (though technically she grabbed his arm with her arm) just as he'd pulled open the door. "If you leave now… you'll lose your head!" The camera zoomed in on the golden ring he suddenly had around his neck, but Nishi was unaware of this meta detail.

"Excuse me? Is that a threat? That broom doesn't look too sharp, so you really shouldn't be-" She pointed the collar out to him.

And more silence.

"… Oooh this can't be good."

"That's what happens when you sign a contract with a demon…"  
The savvy mind of Nishi realized she meant to email, thanks to the law of correlation and anime clichés. "I clicked reply! That wasn't signing anything! You didn't even mention, like %99 percent of what the deal was- oh wow you really are a demon." His rant was subsided by realizing that's exactly what the species is known for doing.

"A hellish contract-" Nishi repressed a snicker at the double entendre. "is incredibly binding and very strict, you have to be very careful not to fall out of line with the specifications." Elsie seemed to be describing the dictionary definition she had memorized, especially since her cutesy voice didn't fit the big words at all. "Or else…"  
"My head will asplode, I got that part." He rattled off the four languages worth of curses and less strong words that meant things like "Those stupid religious texts really should mention stuff like this!" in many variations of phrasing.

Nishi was rather good at remaining calm, but not that good. He ended this breathless string of rage with. "Now get this thing off me before I find a way to make your head explode first!"

"Well, um…" Elsie pointed to her matching explode-o-necklace. "We're buddies now, so that's kind of implied. B-but don't worry!" She did a little hop, trying to brighten the mood. "It'll be alright, we just have to round up as many lost souls as we can and it'll be over soon enough!" On cue, that skull hairclip gained flashing red LED eyes and a little sound effect on par with the most obnoxious ringtones known to man or, presumably, demon.

Elsie made a terrified squeak when it did. "A-ah, there's one now!" She flash stepped back to the window to scout out the culprit. In looking for the loose soul, she noticed the room inside was rather dusty and (much to Nishi's chagrin and amusement) cleaned it up really quickly before going back to a more literal version of soul-searching. "Come over here Holy One, please!"

The window happened to be facing the track… track, where girls were stretching and getting ready to exercise their hearts out. One in particular, as Elsie pointed out, had a hole in that heart of hers that a loose soul decided to occupy. Ayumi. Nishi was only a little surprised, as foreshadowing is also a heck of a thing and she was the only human female of his age range that spoke to him that day.

"Takahara is possessed? Aaand no one is surprised!" He clapped. "So, what do I have to do to get rid of the thing? Wave one of those stupid paper-on-sticks, you know the ones those cute girls at shrines use, at her?" Elsie recoiled at the mention of haraegushi, as their job was mostly scaring away demons.

"No, the only way to rid an individual of these escaped souls is to make them fall in love! That's why I did the contract with you!" Nishi would have explained to her that he's more skilled with the pixels than the people, but his collar had suddenly changed from hot in the pimpin' gold accessory sense to hot in the burn to death sense. So he was currently partaking in the act of making lots of noise futilely trying to loosen it with his fingernails.

Elsie continued. "Lose souls hide deep within a woman's heart in an attempt to be reborn, but making the host fall in love will release the soul's hold!"

"…Wait, 'reborn'? And only females? Does she have to give birth, then? I'm pretty sure you fall in love before you give birth to anything." Nishi was able to get over his impending death to snark at this nonsensical biology hell's creatures had.

Elsie thwacked him with her broom. "It doesn't matter what they do, we have to stop them! Get down there and make her love you!" She was pushing him toward the window now, not remembering human buddies had issues with flying.  
Nishi contemplated his options. He either dies by voiding the contract, or by being pummeled by overly touchy girls with poor impulse control. Despite his better judgement, he opted to go for the latter.

Besides, explaining to a demon from hell that your most experience with making girls fall in love with you was the heart-dotted-Is his mother wrote with was likely to cause a more painful demise. "Okay, I'll try. Here's what we do…"

Elsie figured it out rather quickly, however, when Nishi's attempts at brainstorming how to conquer this girl's heart were browsing the eroge wiki as they sat awkwardly on one of the many conveniently placed staircases on campus. "Holy one, why aren't we doing anything?"

"Because I have no idea what I'm doing at all!" He blurted out, the collar searing back to life after settling down once he offered to try doing his job. "I've never romanced a real girl, they don't make any sense!" Mentally adding a 'current company included' but not being quite panicked enough to state that.

Elsie teared up. "W-what? You're… not the God of Romance, then…"  
"I am, just… in video games."  
"Y-you're the… God of… virtual…?" She didn't finish whatever alternate nickname she had, she burst out crying with a shrill noise that would shame ambulances. It still managed to be cute, though.

This, weirdly enough, gave him an idea. "Elsie, I've got it!" He jumped up and pumped his fists in the air.

And so they navigated to a staircase closer to the track, instead. Elsie was sweeping up out of some compulsion or force of habit. Nishi was still struggling to refine his plan past vague bare basics.

"Ugh, why can't girls be more like they are in games?! These girls aren't even in the right uniform?"

Elsie's attention was got. "What do you mean, Holy One?" This was a mistake, as it gave the Holy Fanboy a chance to go off again.  
"Well first of all these girls' colorscheme doesn't have enough pink, though that isn't a universal constant, but what is that they keep neglecting is that cute track girls have to put their hair up to show their determination! And cheek bones!"

"But, Holy One…" Elsie pointed out to the field, after recovering from the start she had when Nishi started yelling about nonsense just out of range of the track girls themselves.

Ayumi had went from a pixie cut to a side pigtail, a pink ribbon keeping what little hair she had in the trademark track style media was so fond of portraying.

"She did it, she did it! Just like the games, it's perfect!" Elsie was jumping up and down at the prospect of not dying horrible deaths, but Nishi was unconvinced.

"That's just one thing." He said, stubbornly. "Another thing is that they're wearing those conservative shorts to their knees, not cute at all! Everyone in track in video games and real life alike are meant to wear tight shorts not even discernible from bloomers! Mostly because it shows of their thighs."

Elsie didn't miss a beat, or a hop in this case, and did her thing. That thing was using her strange pink robe to magic their shorts into actual bloomers with the same colorscheme. As with any sane team, this freaked the track girls out. Shrieks almost as girly as Nishi's earlier one from every runner, including Ayumi. Panic, panic everywhere.

"My robe can do almost anything to the outside world! But only a buddy like you can affect a girl's inside to evict the loose soul." She explained.

During this, Nishi had relocated to a safe, but not explosion-proof, tree branch. "Please, Holy One, we have to try!" the demoness pleaded. Despite Nishi's growing phobias of most things, gears were turning.

He scrambled down, gravity doing most of the work. "… Okay. Let's try."

For the next few days, Nishi had a new routine. Bug Ayumi constantly, force some fruit on her with vaguely helpful pretenses, and tell her he was cheering for her at the upcoming meet. And also watch with Elsie when she actually ran. This mostly spurred bruises.

At first the reaction was "Don't you dare keep bugging me" and "Is this revenge for you cleaning the roof alone?" But she was slowly warming up. Stifling that warmth under cold, hard violence, but warming up.

"It looks more like she's hating you more, Holy One, not loving…"  
"In games, one can switch to the other with just a bit of work."

One day, while absent-mindedly tossing an orange up and down as she waited for other girls in track to finish so she could take her turn (and trying to ignore the two dweebs who stared at her every day), Ayumi was approached by three upperclassmen. Or upperclasswomen, more specifically.

"And what do you think you're doing, second year?" Said mook #1.  
"The higher grades up go first, or have you not been paying any attention?" Said mook #2.

Ayumi bowed. "I'm sorry for ignoring that rule. It's just, it's almost time for the meet and I need practice!"

"That shouldn't matter to you, you're not even on the team."

"Careful, that overconfidence might hurt you later."

"You're not even very fast, practically walking past the hurdles…"

"And you're insulting another runner instead of ever practicing. Or is your self-esteem that low?" Nishi stood next to Ayumi, arms crossed and teeth bared. How all four of them missed this was likely do to them all being used to carefully ignoring him. The older trio still ignored him.

"Your punishment is thirty laps, get to it!"  
"Yes M'am!" Ayumi ran off to go run on the track as punishment for trying to run on the track, glancing back at Nishi for just a moment.

That gave Nishi a bit of a warm and fuzzy feeling, maybe because his plan was working or maybe because she was pretty adorable.

He walked back to Elsie, who was berating the fact that cruel older students was a universal constant.

"What do we do now, Holy One? Just watch her?"

"We leave. As much as I hate to, it'll help Ayumi realize she cares that we watch her every other day." He noticed he'd switched to her first name, and blushed.

The sun had set by the time Ayumi had finished those laps, out of breath and still owning one orange. A couple of her friends approached, one playfully teasing her that the third years had left before she even hit the tenth lap. Ayumi waved her hand vaguely in the other girl's direction and fell onto her back, spread out like to make a snow angel.

"Those older girls can be so annoying, huh?" Said NPC #1.

"I don't really mind…" Ayumi gasped.

"That guy stalker of yours isn't much better, either." Said NPC #2. Ayumi looked over at her, raising an eyebrow being the most energy she could expend to question what her friend had just said.

"He should've stayed and cheered you on, if he wants to pretend to be the hero!" Ayumi looked over, and Nishi wasn't in his usual place on the stairs. This hurt Ayumi, somehow, somewhere deep down.

Ayumi ignored Nishi once again, as he sat diligently to watch her run.

"I still don't understand why we didn't stay to encourage her, Holy One... You just made her madder, and only a day before the big meet she's so worried about!" Elsie asked. Nishi waved a finger at her like she was a child.

"Let's see how she feels about me when she wins, alright?" Nishi smirked.

Ayumi was off. Jumping over hurdle after hurdle, keeping a decent speed, loose hair flowing behind her. Over another hurdle. Another. Suddenly, a foot caught on one and she crashed into the dirt.

Elsie had been distracted by more sweeping somewhere before then, but when she heard the clatter and worried cries of other girls she and Nishi both rushed over.

Stuck in the nurse's office with a sprained ankle is a rather demoralizing thing to happen to an eager athlete. Ayumi had the misfortune of being demoralized in exactly this manner. Her two closest friends were discussing the occurrence. Quietly, but not quietly enough to avoid the protagonists' notice.

"Poor Ayumi… Looking back, I think I saw something weird about those hurdles…"  
"Yeah, they were kind of aligned differently than usual!"

"Too close together, no wonder she fell."  
"But the guys who set up are always careful not to let that happen…"

"Do you think someone tampered with them, then?" Asked both the first girl and, a short ways away, Elsie.

Nishi nodded sagely. Elsie took that as an allowance to continue. "It must have been those cruel upperclassmen! I can't believe they'd do that!"

"I can't believe something that didn't happen, either… I think I can see the ending, here."  
"Huh?"

Nishi ignored his buddy and entered Ayumi's room. She was clearly upset, sitting in a curled up way with all but the waterworks to cement her current emotional state.

"So, Ayumi, are you going to run tomorrow?" He got a glare for his trouble.  
"Haven't you seen my ankle, Miyama? What do you think I'm going to do?" She snapped.

"I thought you were going to stop pretending." He pointed to the bandage. "Lying is pretty hard to do, after all." Ayumi turned bright red.

"What are you talking about?! Didn't you see how fast I was going, how could I not have been injured?"

"I know you weren't going at full speed," He took a step forward, "Because you didn't even bother to tie your hair up. You always do that when you're trying your best."

And there were the predicted tears. Ayumi gaped.

"…"

"Well?"

"… It's better for everyone if I don't race." She wiped her eyes. "Those girls are right, I'm a horrible runner. Just a few flukes… I can't even improve my time. It's… better if I sit out." She paused between sobs, the tears flowing freely now. Nishi took another step forward, to do something or other.

He used a bit of the gauze that was laying around and tied her hair up for you. "What's best is that you do the best you can, no matter what that is." He said. She stared at him. "You're a shoo-in for first place… at least, if I got to judge." He grinned at her, their noses nearly touching because of how he had to lean to fix her hair.

The tears stopped. And something else also changed. A vague rush of wind without a source. Elsie, watching from outside where she'd taken a walk to go sweep up, saw a big blue loose soul fleeing the scene.

She pulled an oversized jar out of the same hammerspace and flew into it. The spirit was sucked into the jar, reduced into a logical size now with a quaint little cork in it.

"Loose soul: Captured!" She cheered, balancing on her broom.

Nishi closed the door to the nurse's office, leaving a new pair of running shoes behind him. Ayumi looked around, wondering why she'd changed her mind so suddenly on pretending to be injured, and couldn't quite remember why she was suddenly so determined. She'd go on to win that first place medal anyway, though, with her new-found confidence.

"You're telling me she loses her memory after all that?!" Nishi whined as Elsie swept up the classroom floor they'd moved back to.

"But isn't that better, Holy One? It'd be hard to get a second loose soul if the first's host tried to date you!"

"… Second soul?"

***Yuri ga baka ya meinu ze!= Yuri is an idiot and a bitch, among other things! ("ya" means "and", but implies the list isn't complete. "ze" is the same as a second exclamation mark.)**

**** Dokurou•Sukaaru= The best translation I can find of what signs the email is "Curled Skull" or maybe "Skull Skull" with Dokuro meaning skull in Japanese and Sukaru meaning it in Engrish, though that doesn't explain the extra bits from the accepted spellings. I don't get it. But then again, names don't normally do so good in making sense.**

**Tell me what you know in your review? Or correct any canonical (the series) or geographical (anything I say about Japan or Japanese) you see! Please note, anything that uses all caps will be giggled at and I shall not attempt to decipher it. Meaning, be polite and try not to say anything you wouldn't say to my face. See you next time!**


	2. All that Glitters (Fool's gold)

[[Ammika the Author: Today's game reference is

Catherine. It has a DS/GS version in this universe, I guess.]]

Elsie had spent the day being obsessed over by the student body due to her charm and the fact she was something new to gossip about. Nishi had spent the time catching up on his games, even if having sheep horns and climbing up block towers wasn't the most interesting thing to spend a day doing. Three times through to get all the endings, especially. Only a few glimpses of Elsie's fans' conversations caught his ear.

"So you're really Miyama's sister, then?" _What._

"That's right, Nishi's my big brother!"

"I think you're wasted on someone so totally annoying!" _What._

"What?!" _Atta girl._ "How dare you insult my Holy Brother!" _Okay that sounds kind of stupid._ "Every girl in this city will be falling for him soon!"

"Elsie, tone it down a bit." Nishi muttered, and no one heard him. Considering the fact most of his energy was on blushing rather than volume, that wasn't surprising.

The fact her fanclub started laughing at her statements didn't help anything, either.

"Holy Brother, wait up!" Elsie begged, the giant purple bag she had around her shoulders was slowing her down about as much as you'd expect. Nishi was a bit too annoyed to pay attention to her, but he stopped because that was pretty easy to do. She ran up to him, swaying back and forth as the bulk of her satchel sent her off balance. As soon as she was nearly walking next to him, he started again.

"Exactly how many souls do I have to get rid of before I can have a life again?" He hissed through gritted teeth without looking at Elsie. He wasn't playing a game anymore, so you could tell it was serious.

"A-all of them? Every one in the city, that's what the contract said!"  
"The contract mentioned one girl, Elsie. One girl was already de-loose-soul-ed." He held up a finger to emphasize his point.

Elsie changed the subject.

"So, you have an extra room, right? I don't wanna be a couch-demon." She pouted.

"You are insanely lucky I live alone, kid. You couldn't really lie to my parents about you being their daughter, no one's that stupid." Elsie would explain to him the plan she'd had about being an illegitimate child, but she held her tongue.

Eventually, they got home. Nishi made tea, which means he pulled out a couple of cans from the fridge, and a straw in case Elsie wanted one. Just because he was mad at the world didn't mean basic mindless formality could be ignored.

"Now, you want to be a little sister, right?" Elsie nodded enthusiastically.

"Well, you're going to have to be like the ones in games, then! I won't tolerate anything less! First, we need a blood connection." Elsie grabbing him and biting him was not what he meant, and he reacted as one normally does. Also, girly screaming.

"Ow, son of a-, what was that for?! That's not what that means, don't you know what genetics are?!"

"B-but, how else would we have shared blood…?"

Realizing that didn't make any sense, and she was right, he went to the second defining quality of a fictional little sister. "Next, we need shared memories. I guess we'll get that eventually if we're stuck together for a stupid amount of time. And, lastly, moé!"

"Moweh…?"

"Basically be as adorable as possible and basically worship me. I'm not saying you should, I'm saying that's what little sisters do in games. So as you can see, you'd make a horrible little sister." Elsie tried to prove her wonichan otherwise by tackling him to the ground.

After prying the cling-demon off, and reiterating the 'horrible little sister' part of the lecture, Nishi stormed off to go do Nishi things. Which meant gaming. Elsie, and her vague understanding of human meal times, decided to make dinner.

Humans and demons are completely different species, despite looking identical. One way this was obvious was diets; still-living warty fish that glow in the dark do not go on human pasta dishes. But as Nishi was currently tied up by her robe, swearing by the laws of tropes and clichés that he knew she would be a hilariously horrible cook, he had little choice.

Elsie's robe manipulated itself into little hands, and force-fed our poor protagonist.

"I hope you enjoy my labor of love, Holy Brother!" Any of the many, blatantly obvious shows to the contrary went joyfully unnoticed.

"… Not that bad, actually." Nishi said between coughs as he actually managed to get it down. He wasn't lying, either, which surprised even him. The robe fell away, and while enjoying he regained wiggle room he noticed the room was far cleaner than ever before. As we've already established Nishi's definition of clean, this was very impressive.

"Hey, did you clean up or something? Stuff's, like, actually tidy in here."

"I'm glad you like it, Holy Brother! I've had 300 years of practice as a cleaning demon, and was really happy to get some use out of it by cleaning the whole house!"

"Three hundred what now?"  
"Years! And I've had my broom for almost the whole while; its magic is my secret weapon for combating icky things like this. N-not that the house was icky! Um, here, let me show you!" Nishi knew exactly where this was going, as a "weapon" being displayed could only lead to horrible things, he put a stop to that as fast as he could.

"Yeeeah no."  
"I'll only use the lowest setting!"

"Nope."

"But, Holy Brother-"

"Little sisters in games always listen to their older brothers, so no blowing up the house in a really predictable event."

She pouted, but that had won Elsie over rather well to the side of fewer deadly demonstrations.

It was around winning the argument that Nishi's digestive system finally noticed the pasta fresh from River Styx. It didn't approve, and the two of them spent time in the bathroom for the next few hours. Or rather, he and his digestive system spent it in the bathroom and Elsie spent it right outside begging for his forgiveness through the door.

"I AM DOING THE COOKING FROM NOW ON, DAMNIT!" was agreed upon, and Nishi continued his trend in the bathroom with an actual bath. A waterproofed 2GS was both possible, and entertaining, apparently.

"I don't get it, the only thing demonic about her is her talent at ruining my life…" he mumbled, rescuing yet another stupid NPC from the trials of the plot in his game. The more he thought about her, the more he noticed the cutesiness she always had up and the fact that they did in fact already share a few memories. Curse his arbitrary definition of what a little sister is being so easy to fulfill, she still didn't count.

Suddenly, there was a black-out. His little 2GS did nothing to illuminate the room, so he was in the dark in both senses. He felt something squishy on his back, and scrambled to the other side of the tiny tub.

"Okay, not cool, show yourself!" He reached up for the blinds to let some moonlight in, and felt a hand instead as a naked Elsie pulled them for him.

He pulled out a squirt bottle from a second, never-before-seen hammerspace. "Bad demon! No ship teases! Especially if you want to pretend to be a family member! Out!" He sprayed water in her general direction, which did absolutely nothing because she wasn't a cat, as she ran out of the room.

"I-I just wanted to help scrub you, to make you f-feel betteeer!" She sobbed, the last syllable drawing out into a wail, as she and her new towel sat outside the bathroom and Nishi got dressed.

"Well don't! Just stop trying to be a little sister!"

"But… but I am a little sister!"

"…?"

"I have an older sister, after all… she's good at everything she tries, one of the most talented in all of Hell… I'm the opposite, a complete and utter failure…" She sniffled again. "That's why I was on something like cleaning duty, day in and day out… And why I was, and am, so excited to have been chosen to stop loose souls! Somewhere that I could finally shine… I-I guess not, though…"

The bathroom door swung open, and a newly robed Nishi sat beside Elsie and hugged her. "You'll get better. Just, not at being my little sister. You can be a great little sister to your actual sibling, treat me more like a friend who gets to call the shots because it's my house and you're just a guest… Okay?" Elsie hugged back.

"I-I'll try… Holy, umm…"

"…I guess you can still call me that, since you're still pretending to be my sister at school."

"Holy Brotheeeeeeeeer!" She started crying again, with joy instead of sadness.

Nishi went to go put on some real clothes, and find all the things he doesn't like in his closet to pass down to Elsie, while Elsie herself decided to do something to thank her Holy Brother for not kicking her out. Her plan being to clean his favorite console was fine, but her plan to do it with the bath water and soap meant it didn't go as she'd meant it to.

Nishi surprisingly didn't get upset over this. "… Well, use your magical robe thing to fix it, then."  
"I-I don't know how to do something that complicated, though…!"

Nevermind, he got very upset.

"You are really pushing my tolerance for poorly-written characters, El." Nishi scolded. Elsie had decided to try passing him a note, complete with references to her 'scrubbing' idea while he had been taking a bath, and the girl between them had read it out loud instead. Neither of them will ever hear the end of it.

At the time, they were heading toward a spot to go have lunch. On the way was a stand that sold sandwiches, which was accumulating a massive crowd.

The bulk of the swelling, hungry masses were the usual black and near-black haired students. There were exceptions, of course; a girl with unusually light brown hair, a girl who'd apparently bleached hers that awful orange color, and most notably a girl with her blonde hair in twin ponytails who had just came into view.

"And this, Elsie, is why I bring instead of buying the sandwiches with the long wait or the cafeteria food which is both expensive and kind of gross." Nishi went into a lecture while Elsie kept her eyes instinctively on the blonde girl. The angry eyes, the shortness (offset only by high-heels), something about it read 'possessed' to the little demon. Or maybe just 'grumpy'.

But mostly, Elsie was paying attention to the girl because her loose soul sensor, skull hairpin edition, was beeping at her. The blonde girl walked to the back of the crowd, and disregarded what a "line" normally was.

"Quiet!" The student body complied and most of them faced her, muttering things like:

"It's Mio!" "The Aoyama's prized daughter?" "I hear she lives in a castle!" "She has her own driver, too, how cool!", and from behind Elsie there was also another mutter of:

"How many popular girls that no one actually likes can one school have? Christ."

That driver a faceless crowd member mentioned shoo'd the hoard of teenagers to both sides, and Mio walked up to the counter easily.

"One." Mio didn't seem to realize that those kinds of sentences were normally ended with a 'please.' The nondescript cashier obliged, and listed the price as 200 yen. Mio's driver drew out a 10,000 yen bill instead.

"I can't take that." She explained.

"I never keep small change." Mio insisted. "Just give me as many of them as ten thousand goes for, then."

That turned out to be all the sandwiches in the stand, unfortunately. Half the crowd voiced their anger at how unfair that was since Mio had both ignored 'first come, first serve' and any other sort of decency. The other half had already given up and went to go mooch off friends with bento boxes, or buy something at the cafeteria.

Mio walked off, her driver carrying them in a plastic bin, while the buddies hid behind a tree and watched her for any suspicious activity. Nope, Mio was completely in character so far.

"Are those sandwiches really that good?" Asked Elsie, obliviously.

"Why are all the loose souls possessing girls that already act like they're from Hell?" Nishi asked, both ignoring Elsie and being racially insensitive to her entire species.

Elsie used her robe to magic up Mio's student profile. As blood type and birth date aren't nearly as useful in making a girl fall in love with you as you'd think, Nishi used his own induction skills.

"Well, she's clearly a tsundere. No one has that many hair clips and that uncomfortable shoe wear without having an angsty, lovable secret side." And Elsie was completely lost. "I can get her to like me just as soon as we find that out." That made a lot more sense to her, but…

"Holy Brother, what's a tsunadeeree?"

"It's only two simple words squished together, El, it's not that hard. You know, 'tsun tsun' being a slang term for sociopaths, and dere dere- surely you've heard that refer to lovey dovey couples at parks and such."

There was an odd, foreboding silence as Nishi's mental gears turned. Well, it was more like a hamster on the wheel, but turning was happening. Suddenly, he got down on one knee.

"I'm in love with you." Elsie felt a bit faint, and a lot confused. "At first sight, you've stricken me with your charm." She made squeaky noises not unlike the hamster, and started waving her arms and explaining something about how romance is unallowed within the buddy system.

Nishi pulled out a clipboard from the second hammerspace and started jotting things down. "… What are you doing?"

"I-I should be asking that! You shouldn't be confessing such sweet, romantic things to me when we're trying to make Mio fall in love with you instead!"

"But that's what I was doing, I'm going to see how she reacts to a love confession."

Elsie decided her forehead needed to be close friends with the nearest tree, a "stupid, stupid, stupid!" resounded as she whacked herself on it repeatedly. Nishi pulled her away by the collar.  
"Hey, you're not allowed to be crushing on me and pretending to be related to me at the same time. Incest is below even my standards."  
"I-I'm not crushing! You're the one who confessed to me, stupid!"

"If you keep using 'stupid' like that, you'll sound like a tsundere too."

Elsie shoved him. "I am not, and I will adhere to the buddy system! Even if you're really good at making girls fall in love, that's only for hosts of lost souls!"

But when Nishi practiced the other thirty or so confessions he stole from his video games, she reacted the exact same way. And denied she did. And then went back to tree bonding.

"I haven't been able to get you out of my head. Will you go out with me?" Nishi asked, the real deal to Mio; she was just about to enter that silver, American-made car and go home for the day.

Mio summoned her driver as she had before. And as before, he moved the "offending" student out of Mio's way. This time, a bit more violently. Elsie appeared out of her hiding space of behind a convenient wall and went to help her buddy, who was currently face down on the sidewalk.

"I don't understand, Holy Brother, why did she turn you down?"

"I expected her to turn be down…" Said Nishi, not moving an inch. "But not like she did. Tsunderes are supposed to refuse to admit their feelings, but make it obvious with violence and blushing."  
"W-well, she was violent!" The demon offered. Nishi shook his head; in his own, complicated mind of tropes that just wasn't how it worked.

He shifted to a sitting position. "Your robe seems to be able to get information, can you make it find where her house it?" Nishi wasn't about to let this girl escape, not when he had a magical pink robe ex machima.

"This'd be way easier to do if this were a game." Nishi said as they followed the pink, fluffy trail. "There would be a little arrow with her face on it, and you could click on it to teleport to her driveway."

"Amazing, Holy Brother!" But Elsie wasn't referring to that useless fact. They'd ended up in view of a huge mansion of some sort.

"Wait… your robe goes right past the entrance. And besides, this is a public building; not a house... I think it's a hotel, actually."

"Aww."

They rounded the corner to the real ending of Elsie's tracker. The car was there, and Mio (from a view in some nearby bushes) could be seen going up stairs into one of many apartments apartment in the complex her driver had parked at.

"Is she visiting a friend?" Elsie guessed.

"She doesn't act like she'd ever be friends with someone too poor to have their own home…" Nishi observed, and the two snuck forward. Luckily, these apartments had windows on the same wall as the entrance.

"Welcome home, Mio."


	3. It Takes Two (Step-by-step)

**[[Ammika the Author: Ugh, I hate that this one's so short... but it's just so easy to speed through her story and I can't think of any way to pad it out! Hey, guys reviewing, tell me which parts need more details and I'll write more on that. Thank you!**

**Today's game reference is something that might be Pokemon-ish, I guess?]]**

The young lady and her employee sat down at the table in the otherwise sparse apartment, the latter setting down a pile of sandwiches onto the table.

"Mistress Mio, what were you thinking buying more sandwiches than you can eat? You can't afford to-"  
"I refuse to change how I act! My father always told me to be proud of my family and I intend to present myself as heiress to Aoyama Central Industries!" She angrily took a bite of one of said sandwiches.

"You don't have his fortune to rely on anymore. Your mother's job is barely making ends meet without your frivolous spending!"

"It's not my fault if no one has any change, commoners should try harder if they want to accommodate people like me who only carry big bills!"

"You are a commoner! That was an advance in your allowance for months! What are you planning to do for lunch every day once you don't have money to spend and these sandwiches expire?"

"If we have no bread, I'll have cake." Mio apparently didn't know much about famous quotes, either.

Mr. Yusou Morita was appalled. "Mio…" He shook his head and stood. "We'll continue discussing this later, I have my job to do." He put on a taxi driver hat and exited the building, getting into a different, more taxi-ish car in the parking lot than the one he drove Mio to her home in.

Mio stormed out after him, not done arguing her points, but stopped when she noticed a suspicious boy blatantly staring through her window. And a pink trash can, but that wasn't important.

She slammed the door to her apartment quickly, her face flushing, and tried to stammer out something clever.

"Y-you're that peasant that claimed to love me earlier!" All Mio could manage was a statement of the obvious. "Stalkers belong in jail, you know!" She fled back into her apartment and slammed the door for a second time, and closed the window curtains.

"I-I thought Mio was one of the richest people in the area, not one of the poorest!" Said the trash can, with Elsie's head poking out from inside.

"… Next time you do that, hide me too." Nishi grumbled, not enjoying having just been abandoned to his tsundere fate by his buddy.

"I-I'm sorry! … Though, something I don't understand, I saw a little shrine in there to her father, but it didn't look like she was taking care of it at all! You're supposed to respect the dead, with incense and things." Elsie rambled, the dead was one of a demon's best subjects for obvious reasons. "But, I guess it doesn't matter, how do we make her like you?"

"We're getting there. Knowing your love interest's darkest secret is a huge step, and her current condition is obviously both secret and very serious to her. Now, Elsie, use that robe to track where that guy works."

"He's what?!" Mio gasped, her voice cracking in the least elegant fashion possible.

"Mr. Miyama has volunteered to help you be a more cautious spender." Morita explained.

Nishi waved, and Elsie was very carefully staying on the entire other side of the street and behind some more bushes. "Good morning, Mistress Mio." Nishi bowed, managing not to make any disrespectful noises no matter how much he wanted to giggle at the current circumstances. Elsie was doing it for him.

"No, I refuse! I can handle myself, and I won't allow someone so creepy and poor to…" The look Morita gave her changed her mind for her, if begrudgingly.

And so, for the next few days, Mio (and her slowly-dwindling bag of sandwiches) was supervised by Nishi. As she didn't have any money to spend in the short term, this simply meant that she was forced to hear a few of his compliments every day.

Slowly, she started warming up to his presence. Mostly because, as well as keeping her from spending nonexistent cash, he carried all her stuff for her. (With the help of some of Elsie's magic robe, which he got the assistance of as soon as he remembered he was horrible at any physical activity.)

Mio slowly got more talkative, though never in a way that ruined her princess image. The occasional compliment you'd give any servant, addressing him more and more informally, little touches that anyone who played one Ojou route in a game would pick up on. This means Nishi practically picked it up before it happened.

They joked, they laughed, Mio immediately got embarrassed about laughing and refused to admit it had ever happened, rinse and repeat until the relationship is thoroughly scrubbed. Nishi was warming up to her, too. Though girls that start off disliking you were one of his least favorite archetypes, real girls like Mio were a lot more 'dimensional' than the ones in games when it came to personality. She was smart, she had great posture, there were so many little touches a video game never mentioned about lovely girls like her. Like Mio, Nishi insisted no such thing was happening because that would insult the sims he enjoyed so much.

"So, do you think she'll love you soon, Holy Brother?"

"Yeah, El. This route is almost complete."

"Didn't you say 'I can see the ending' last time?"

"I wanted some variation. Shut up."

"Morita, this is the wrong way! What are you doing?"

"Mr. Miyama and I decided that a growing girl such as yourself needed more fresh air. Your mother approved, so no complaining."  
Mio shot daggers from her eyes at Nishi, who was trying his best to be as far away as one could when they were strapped in next to each other in the back seat.

"That's not fair! I'm supposed to be going to dances in ballrooms, not a common park!"

"You turned down the invitation to the last ball you were invited to, Ms. Mio."

And so, Mio was forced, with comfortable flat-soled shoes courtesy of Elsie's talents, to spend her Sunday doing common things. Like feeding the cute little ducks the bits of the sandwiches she wouldn't have been able to eat anyway, and being pushed on the swing as gently as possible by Nishi, and having the time of her life acting like a kid again without anyone judging her.

"Tell me, Mio, how you act… it's for your father, right?" That killed the mood quick, Mio got back into her pout. But Nishi continued.

"I don't think any father would want their daughter to do anything that didn't make them happy. You only seem to laugh when you're not pretending to be rich, when you do things you enjoy instead of keeping a façade up. I think your father would prefer things like this, to you lying and feeling upset about him and about your lifestyle."

Suddenly, a pink blur danced around the confused blonde that left her in a blue and silver gown with roses and ruffles and heels, again, and the entire princess stereotype in one bundle. (Over her school uniform and likely to be made of tissue paper, as Elsie wasn't that good at quality control.) "You feel like you're rich acting the teenager you really are, is what I mean. Your father didn't want anything less or more than your happiness, if I had to guess…" Nishi was in a powder blue tux that looked more like a prom date than Mio's designer, suddenly. He extended a hand. "So, Cinderella, what do you think?"

Mio didn't know what to say. The stress of high society didn't make her happy, and her time with Nishi did. He was right, and she knew it. Her father was a wonderful man, who danced with her while she wore pretty dresses, who took her to amazing places, who wanted her to be happy. If she was happier with what Nishi was saying, would that make her daddy happy too? The image of her father, who she refused to admit was gone to the point of never doing the traditional ceremonial things she was supposed to, had been less of a burden to her as she relaxed, with Nishi's help. She was her father's daughter, but she was her own person too.

She wasn't sure why she felt all this, why she was in a park, or why there was suddenly a really cold wind, but she knew it. And she would make her papa proud by enjoying life to the fullest.

"Loose soul captured once again, Holy Brother!" Elsie showed off the little yellow-and-red blob in the jar she had caught fleeing from a flustered Mio, and was glad she could legitimately say she'd 'caught spirits' with the counter up to two.

"Can the next loose soul be in someone less stubborn? This is exhausting, and the only thing I get out of it is my neck intact…" Nishi requested of no one in particular, fiddling with his 2GS to try to get his legion of little, blob-like creatures to murder other nameless creatures so he could get to the next level and fight more creatures. It was a good parallel to his current situation, but he wasn't really paying enough attention to notice.

"Excuse me…" As they had been walking to lunch having this little epilogue, they ran into Mio. "Can I buy a sandwich with these? I don't really understand these little coins." She showed Nishi her money.

"Yeah, that's about how much two of them cost."

"… Thank you." And she ran off to wait her turn (as much as everyone else did, which meant she still pushed and shoved and tried to get to the front before she was supposed to) to make her first purchase of her new lifestyle. But not before locking eyes for a while at the cute boy she'd mustered up the courage to ask.

_How embarrassing_… they both thought the moment the longing gaze ended.

_How cute!_ Elsie thought.


	4. A Little Break (Time out)

**[[Ammika the Author: I'm a cheater, this is more the Elsie-bakes-a-cake storyline of episode 8 than the Buggy-game-must-be-won storyline you'd expect here. Please don't kill me, this all part of a broader plan of mine, I swear! Though mostly there's no way to deviate the story because it has nothing to do with the protagonist's personality as it is his order in pushing buttons.**

**… Ha ha, death is mentioned in chapter four, I'm so funny.**

**Today's game reference is Katawa Shojo]]**

"Holy Brother, what are you doing…?"

"Mffteetashkmpf" Nishi's current form of what was probably 'multitasking' was eating breakfast and playing one of his games at the same time. Elsie looked to see what had caught his attention and saw some girl with tannish hair and funny legs was running around a track. Elsie wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to be doing to actually play it.

Elsie was downright fed up with the fact that Nishi focused more on games than her between loose soul hunting, mostly because it meant she was bored because she wasn't allowed to try any of the games herself and the Miyama household lacked anything to amuse her. She coped with this fact by whining about it to the girl she sat next to, named Chihiro.

"You could just ignore him." Was her suggestion, and when that was an obvious failure she added "Well, uhh, this thing I was reading says that the way to a boy's heart is his stomach! Maybe you could cook him something?"

"My Holy Brother doesn't like me cooking…" She flashed back to a few mornings ago.

"I thought I told you not to do anymore cooking!" Nishi scolded his demon buddy, his spray bottle out and ready. A cyclopean box with noodly tentacles down the sides was watching the event, as Elsie's supposed meal.

"But, but I even woke up early to make you lunch!" Said the cook-demon.

"That's not lunch, it's still alive!"

"So it'll still be warm when you eat it!"

"Humans don't eat anything that disgusting!"

"But- but cooking and cleaning are all I'm good at!"

"Stick to cleaning, if that's your idea of good cooking! You're the worst cook I've ever seen, leave trying to make anything edible to me!"

Her classmate gave her the magazine anyway, flipped to the page with a strawberry cake.

"Red and white…" Elsie read out the title. It looked just like what Nishi used as visual aid for what 'real' food was, this could actually work! That's exactly what she stood up and shouted out, too. "This could actually work! Right, I'll bake a cake!" Oddly, this didn't draw the attention of anyone in the classroom.

Using an exact duplicate (In reality it was an inflatable balloon that looked vaguely like her) Elsie snuck into the Home Ec. room.

"Wow, schools have kitchens too! The human world is pretty amazing!" She put down her giant purple bag and drew the magazine back out of it. "The first ingredient is… sugar!"

She pulled out a smaller bag from the purple bag. Inside were white puffs with faces, making groaning noises and trying to escape from the little plastic trap. "I didn't know humans had sugar too, good thing I already have some of that!" She poured the little creatures into a cup and moved on.

"Next is… egg whites?" She dumped out her bag to reveal she didn't have any eggs that had whites in them. There were spikey ones that resembled durians, ones with spots and stripes, ones as big as Elsie herself and ones you couldn't even see. As she tried to figure out which kind the book meant, the sugar had hopped out the door in a military-esque line. Elsie ran out after them, right into Nishi (who was trying to find her so they could have lunch.)

"This is your fault, isn't it?" He asked. Elsie only had time to hide her mixing bowl behind her back.

"Um, n-no! I'm not doing anything~ But just wait, Holy Brother, I'll do something alright!"

"That didn't make any sense." Nishi commented, shooing away the little white things. "And what's with the cooking stuff?" Elsie wasn't hiding the mixing bowl well.

"Idon'tknowwhatyou'retalkingaboutgottagobye." Nishi grabbed his buddy before she could do anything stupid.

After a stern talking to, Elsie showed Nishi to the Home Ec. room so she could show him exactly what she would do to win his respect. What was in the Home Ec. room, however, was a bunch of assorted animals; from slimey worms to man-dragons. Most of them were pretty cute, but being from Hell they weren't very friendly. As it turns out, the Home Ec. room is pretty hot and demon cooking uses fertilized eggs.

After barring the door and likely losing their Home Ec. privileges, (and with the help of their explanations for why not to go into the room taking until school ended,) Elsie and Nishi relocated to a random bench to sulk and yell at the sulker respectively. A few random passer-bys, a boy walking his dog or a hazel-eyed girl in a hoodie, ignored her plight of being scolded until the boy was blue in the face.

"…Now, why exactly were you using a classroom for cooking with all your weird little animals?" Although Nishi had spent the last hour or two ranting about how she's not allowed to do that ever again, it was only after his anger subsided that he remembered that he had only a vague idea what she had been doing.

"I-I wanted to show you my strength by baking you a red and white cake!" Elsie thrust the page in his general direction.

Nishi looked over it. "… Ew, strawberries. Well, if you want to learn how to cook things that humans like - which also means nothing like this because wow the recipe is really bad- I'll teach you!"

And so they did.

"Okay, first of all, sugar looks like this. It's a powder, and it definitely isn't sentient!"

"Yes, Holy Brother!"

"Do they hatch into chickens, then?"

"No, that'd be disgusting!"

"And then the frosting…"

"Aah, it's getting everywhere!"

It was a good thing Elsie was a cleaning demon, but eventually they made a lovely cake together. A cake with as much chocolate as the webpage search for recipes could find, something about that being inherently romantic so Elsie could use those skills for capturing loose souls later. Either way, it was delicious.

Meanwhile, the lunch Elsie had earlier was having a snack of its own. A big, green, scaley, recently hatched man-dragon snack. And a slimey caterpillar, and a constantly burning fox, and many other things that didn't make the tentacled box seem like it itself was a very good meal choice. Hopefully it would stay on the Miyama's roof and not bother anyone.


End file.
